


heal.

by snugglyduckling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, F/F, Military, Reader-Insert, pre hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 16:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18803698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snugglyduckling/pseuds/snugglyduckling
Summary: accidents lead to messy reunions.





	heal.

**Author's Note:**

> this is definitely part of a larger universe i'm working on-- not everything is elaborated on here, and it's meant to be that way. i hope that's okay!

It’s cold.

Ridiculously, snowy, icy cold. The kind of cold that seeps into your skin through your bones and even past that, into your very soul— the kind that goes beyond teeth chattering and shivering and just leaves you numb, unsure if the wisps in the air are from your exhaling or the last joyous tendrils of your fading Lucky Strike.

At least, that’s how Bucky feels, sitting out in the hard dirt on his ass, leaned up against some French barn, the wood against his back sagging from the months of freezing and melting and freezing and melting again— much like Bucky himself, actually, after weeks on and off walking out around the countryside after having lost their transport units back in Saint-Naizaire. Heroism came with many costs, and Steve’s stupid ass was lucky he’d found a group of guys with pockets full of the same kind of moronic currency he was dealing in.

“Captain fuckin’ America,” Bucky muttered incredulously to no one in particular, leaning his head back against the warped wood, his finger resting on the trigger of his rifle as he studied the constellations above. Ursa minor, Ursa major, Orion…the stargazing out here was a hundred times better than it ever was in Brooklyn, at least, the severe lack of any population clearing the night sky and making way for those tiny dots of white hot light to dance through his line of sight.

It was comforting, to look up and see millions and millions of stars, however many miles away, and know that up there, all was well. Their tiny little war, on their tiny little planet, was nothing compared to the infinite possibilities above him, stretching out for light years upon light years, cosmos to cosmos.

If he squinted real hard and did a little embellishing, he could probably convince himself he was looking at the smoky rings of the Milky Way. Maybe somewhere up there, some little green guy was looking down at him and wondering how some idiot from New York found himself in the French countryside in the dead of winter, following a skinny kid that used to run around Brooklyn with his chest puffed out and two matching black eyes like he’d won some type of victory.

(Faith and loyalty and love and all that was how. Bucky would readily admit it, but Sergeant Barnes was made of tougher stuff, and he had to remind himself that he was fighting a war, not just running around back alleys with Steve using bin lids for shields. The mushy bonds of friendship would have to stay written in the shared cups of coffee and stories about Bucky’s botched dates rather than crystallized by their breath in the freezing cold air.)

Bucky suddenly coughs like he was punched in the gut, his Lucky having gotten down to the very last bits before his fingers, the tar feeling thick in his throat, choking any of the pleasure out of the act of smoking. He frowns at the cig as he tosses it into the dirt, watching as the embers fade out, the tendrils of smoke wafting off the end getting to be thinner and thinner.

His coughing didn’t seem to wake the other Howlers, thankfully— you learn what to tune out and what should pique your interest in a place like this, learning to distinguish between far off gun fire and a sneeze in your sleep.

They were only about 10 or so miles outside of the nearest British camp, luckily, since they were just about out of rations, completely out of coffee, and, besides that, they all stunk to high heaven. Bucky would follow Steve to hell and back without question, but traveling around with Captain America kind of felt like a slap in the face when he always came back looking absolutely dashing, golden hair handsomely tousled and dirt in only the places that made him look brave while the rest of them looked like they’d been rolling around in pig styes in their spare time.

Bucky ran his tongue over his teeth, shifting his gaze back up towards the inky black sky in hopes of distracting himself from his already growing need for another cigarette, his right hand still resting on the machine on his lap, the strap digging uncomfortably into his neck in its special familiar way.

(The night sky above him was almost starting to feel more like home than anything else, a dark, thick sort of blanket that was always there for him on these cold evenings, no matter where they all found themselves. Each and every speck of light in the sky was a comfort, a reminder that at least he’d always have them.)

(At least they wouldn’t ever come back to him different.)

He hears Morita cough from inside— a nasty thing he’s been carrying around for a while now. Too many nights of cold and wet and lack of sleep will do that to a guy. Bucky’d offered to take his watch, practically wrestled him back onto his his spot on the dirt floor an hour or so ago, forcing a bit more rest for Morita, and a little time for himself.

He tries his best, when he’s on watch all alone, to not let his mind wander too far past Europe, but it’s hard, especially when all he wants to do is get himself and Steve back home so they can hug his sisters and grab a beer at the bar down the street.

(And God, he hates to admit it, but he’d kill to speak to a woman that wasn’t Peggy Carter. She was great and all, really, but anyone with a pulse could see that she only had eyes for Steve— not exactly the best person to go to if he was craving womanly touch. Which he was, most definitely, along with a hot shower and some damn sugar for his coffee. Just the thought of perfumed skin and soft lips was enough at this point to have him blushing, and his severe lack of any privacy did nothing to ease his stress.)

He exhales, closing his eyes momentarily, wrapping his coat around himself just a little tighter. It wasn’t helpful to think of all the things he didn’t have— he had his life, and he had Steve, and he had the stars above him, and that was enough.

Bucky’s eyes flutter open, and he blinks, his eyes readjusting to the dim light covering the fields around them, washing over the landscape surrounding the barn. It wasn’t cloudy, at least. He had a clear view of everything above.

Winter was rapidly approaching, and finding a clear night was getting tougher and tougher, with the storms getting to be more and more frequent. Even the best of pilots were starting to report trouble navigating, with the dense, soupy clouds that oftentimes wrecked their visibility.

So it’s stupid, really, that on a night as clear as this one, Bucky doesn’t see the bomber until it feels like it’s right over them.

It happens so quickly, he hardly remembers jumping to his feet and running inside, nearly tripping over his own rapid steps in his panic, the blood running straight out of his chest, his body going cold as he sees Dum Dum turn to look at him, his eyes still dancing with sleep.

He feels like he’s already gone deaf, his hearing gone but for a shrieking dyne that seems like it’s erupting from inside his own head, and he can feel the heat on his back drawing nearer and nearer, the white-hot remnants of the barn above them licking at any inch of bare skin it can find.

The last thing Bucky remembers is screaming at him to run before everything goes black.

…

“…and we’re almost out of morphine. So if you can try to scrounge some up that’d be grand.”

“…I’ll certainly try.”

A sigh. “Seems like that’s all we do ’round here, huh?”

Bucky’s head is absolutely pounding, the pain coming in sharp pulses from somewhere behind his eyes, white hot licks against his head that travel all the way down to his toes. It’s the echo of a booming ammunition fall that’s got him under its dirty thumb, ringing his head like a bell.

He can’t even bring himself to open his eyes, the thought of having to use them for anything causing the twang in his cranium to rear its ugly head even more than it already was. He honestly isn’t even sure where he is; they could have shipped him back to the States for all he knows. A bomb did go off on them, after all, on— _Steve._

It’s the worry for his friend that makes his eyes finally flutter open, that residual protective nature over a kid that used to be shorter than Bucky was that he wasn’t ever sure would fully fade.

He’s in a nurses’ tent somewhere, laying on a lumpy cot and covered in sweat, his torso covered in layers and layers of bandages, which, thankfully, don’t seem to be bloody. There’s light filtering through the thin muslin material of the tent, dancing on the dust floating around the air. There’s chatter going on outside, but with the ringing in his head still feeling sickening, it’s impossible to make out.

He doesn’t see that golden blonde hair on any of the cots near him— Dum Dum is passed out a couple beds down on the other side, and he thinks he sees Jacques next to him. Other than that, the tent is full of men he doesn’t recognize, and women darting from cot to cot, making sure everyone is taken care of.

(If Steve was dead, he’d know. He’d just feel it, like a piece of himself had been taken from him, like losing an arm. He’d know.)

_(Right?)_

He takes a deep breath, a gravelly, wheezy sort of thing that ends in a dry, painful cough, his chest crying out in pain as the muscles expand and contract with his violent breaths.

God, he needs a cigarette.

The nurse closest to him, standing at the foot of his bed with a clipboard, turns around, pieces of hair falling out of her bun, her cheeks pink from exertion.

And that’s when Bucky knows, undoubtedly, that someone had given him too much morphine; he’s in a dream, a hallucination, _something._

“Y/N?”

It comes out like the rough rub of sandpaper on dry tar, but he can’t even bring himself to be bothered; the last time he saw her was— well, the last time he’d seen her, she’d been walking away from him down a busy street back home, her heels clicking on the damp pavement, her red lipstick stuck to his cheek as a final goodbye to anything they could have had.

And now here she is, standing in front of him, covered in soot and dirt and God knows what else, that same optimistic sparkle still in her eyes, even with the horrors out in the trenches and the dying men in her hands.

“Hiya, sarge.”

She walks over to the right side of him, shoving a metal cup of water into his hands before dipping her hands into the bowl of it at his bedside, scrubbing her fingers together, ignoring the rusty red filling the bowl.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She laughs a soft sort of giggle through her nose, drying her hands off on her apron before putting her hands to his chest (and God, he‘d never admit it, but he feels warm just with a woman’s hands on his bare skin; he’s been away too long), pulling back a corner of his bandage and wrinkling her nose at whatever she sees underneath. Bucky takes a sip of his water as she reaches down to pull the blanket sitting around his hips up to his waist, tucking him in with all the same carefulness as a mother.

“Same thing as you. Serving our country.” She pauses, her hands smoothing out the corner of the gauze she’d lifted from his sticky skin. “As best I can, anyway. How’s your head?”

He frowns, watching as she pulls a vial and a syringe out of her pocket. “Shitty. Thought you said you couldn’t be involved with anyone in the military.”

Her fluid action of filling the syringe falters, just for a moment, before she continues, checking the measurement carefully. “Things changed.”

Bucky’s nose wrinkles when she slips the needle into his bicep, pressing down the plunger, the petulant frown still plastered on his face just from thinking about the way she’d left him. “Things changed pretty quick, sugar.”

Her eyes dart up to meet his, any ounce of friendliness lost, her gaze gone stone cold. She pulls the syringe out of his arm, pulling the needle off the glass and putting the whole mess back into her apron pocket, clearly electing to treat him with the cold shoulder. “Captain Rogers and the rest of your unit are perfectly fine, save for a couple bumps and bruises. The bomb went off quite a ways away from where you were positioned, you just caught the edges of the damage. They’re throwing you back in in a couple days.” She dips her hands back into the bowl of water, wiping them again on her bloodied apron. “Feel better, Sargeant.”

She starts to walk away, the bottom of her skirt brushing against his fingertips, the starchy fabric running playfully along his calloused, worn hands; just the feeling causes a surge of stupidity, a sort of bravery he left back in Brooklyn.

“Y/N.”

She turns around, lips parted. He expects her to say something, to come back with some witty retort, but she lets the beat pass, gives him the leeway to speak.

“It’s really nice to see you.”

He watches as the bravado rushes out of her, the walls she’d built up during- months? weeks? He’s not really sure- of being on the frontline, treating wounded men and dying boys, crack, just a little, under the pressure of familiarity.

She smiles, a sad, understanding sort of upturn of the lips. “You too, James.”

And then she’s gone, off to patch up someone else, and Bucky’s last thought before the morphine kicks in is how much he’d missed looking at the curve of her lips.


End file.
